Introduction

Using cartoons within PowerPoint slides can be an
amazing route to add a light moment or highlight attention towards a strong
point - either way, it is a great concept that is going places as Dan Rosandich
discovered much to his delight.

The Story

Let's hear Dan's story in his own words...

"I got started as a fulltime cartoonist back
in 1976 as I desperately wanted to get my cartoons published after developing
a keen interest in magazine cartoons. My first time out, submitting 10
cartoons to a magazine in New York called Mechanix Illustrated resulted
in one of them being accepted for publication for the fee of $35. I quickly
became involved creating new cartoons on many different subjects and after
a few years developed a large circle of regular "markets" which
published my work. I then began mailing promotional brochures to various
businesses and one of them approached me asking to use some in a series
of presentations.

"I soon began to realize a new market for my
cartoons and ran an ad in Presentations magazine.
I got more work and now license a lot of my existing images from my various
catalogs for this purpose alone. Not to mention newsletter publishers,
book publishers, e-zine publishers and also websites and magazines. For
instance, if a presenter is working with a group of healthcare people,
my medical cartoons are available. If they're working with CEO's for a
specific corporation, some of my business cartoons may apply. Or if they're
working with people in the educational sector, my education or school spots
may apply, and so on."

An Interview

All questions are in bold and the answers are in normal
text. Since the interview was conducted in a free conversation style, the
questions and answers are all mixed up!!! Actually, Dan answered most questions
before I could even ask - so sometimes, the questions finish after (not
before) the answers themselves.

What inspires you? It's hard to put my finger
on what "inspiration" is or what actually inspires me except
to say I enjoy the simple form of being creative with pen on paper...in
essence, drawing something and looking at it and feeling satisfied with
what I have illustrated. And do you get creativity blocks I do get "blocked" from
time to time...I once dealt with a long period of time in which I had a
hard time creating cartoons, although I am "on call" with many
other publishers, it's nice when they call to actually assign something
and say: "Draw something which shows...." , and I'll do a rough
sketch and send it to them and they'll approve it for a finished inking
or tell me to fine tune a specific part of the drawing. But moreover it's
nice to get a fast approval so I learned to pay close attention to the
details of the work they need when I am initially contacted. - if yes,
how do you overcome them? To overcome creative blocks, I usually pick
up books or collections of other cartoons and by reading through them,
this has helped in the past. Seeing other forms of creative people's work
can sometimes help to overcome this. Or I leave cartooning alone altogether
and step out for a run. By seeing something different, breathing fresh
air and getting negativity out of mind also helps. I'm no health-nut by
any stretch of the imagination but have managed to run well over 1200 miles
per year for the last 20 years, and when you do something that invigorates
you physically, it also invigorates your creativity. At least it's worked
for me.Do cartoons enrich Any presenter who has used cartoons
in their projects has told me it helps in their own communication
with the audience in that once a little humor or laughter is
injected, the point is easier to convey and many times the message
is better understood. PowerPoint? How sometimes in the
introduction and ending of the presentation or even throughout
the show. This is left up to the presenter since they know from
the message they're trying to convey what should and should not
be portrayed. and where Of course in any humorous or comedic
display, and definitely within a presentation that is mundane...i.e.,
in something where you may be using A LOT of text or graphs,
images like a cartoon can keep the attention of your audience. do
you think they can be used and when should they be avoided Any
presentation which involves negative health issues like cancer
or AIDS for instance. If your audience notes you're including
humor within your project, they may not percieve your intentions
in a positive or enlightening manner.

Tell us about some instances where cartoons added
value to a presentation
A company in Colorado was instituting a 911 program in their county
and to help their workers understand the issue at hand, I created a few customized
animated looking, human-like telephones with pointers in hand so the presenter
would show him looking or pointing at the text in the overheads...this helped
keep the attention of the audience and the message conveyed in the text or
paragraphs of this particular presentation. The canned laughter of the crowd
also left the presenter at ease with his audience I later learned..

If someone doesn't want any EXISTING images from my
catalogs for a presentation, can I create CUSTOMIZED cartoons under their
art instructions?
The answer is YES...in fact, over the years I have considered creating
customized cartoons as a specialty of mine.

What about pricing? I usually base this on
a number of factors and would appreciate knowing this up front, to provide
you with a reasonable and understandable fee. Some of the factors I take
into consideration are:

Whether or not the images are in color or
black & white

How fast you need the artwork. In an hour? A day?
A week?

How many in attendance

Will the images appear in just the overheads or
also in any print materials you hand out to the audience

What number of images you will need....1,2,3,
or ??

Will the presentation be in front of any Fortune
500 officers or a group of non-profits?

So there are many factors to let me know about ahead
of time if you'd like a reasonable quote.

How it works

Dan uses Photoshop for most of his work - this allows
him more than just creative freedom since he can distribute work to his
clients in any format they require from uncompressed TIFF to high-res JPEG
and regular GIF files.

For PowerPoint use, JPEG and GIF files work the best - and GIF really
works so much better for use in presentations, especially if there are not
too many colors in the cartoons being used. GIF also keeps file sizes under
control since its gamut does not exceed 256 colors - also known as 'indexed
color' in the professional world.

Conclusion

I think use of Dan's cartoons in PowerPoint
slides opens up a new way to bring the amazing world of cartoons
and presentations together. If you know of an interesting story like
this that explores a new facet of PowerPoint usage and would like
to be featured on Indezine, do send
me your feedback...